ndous figures on the paper in his hand.

He wondered, rather uncomfortably, what he would do, under the
circumstances, if it were in his power to declare peace to-morrow.

In his office in the mill administration building, he found the general
manager waiting. Through the door into the conference room beyond he
could see the superintendents of the various departments, with Graham
rather aloof and detached, and a sprinkling of the most important
foremen. On his desk, neatly machined, was the first tentative
shell-case made in the mill machine-shop, an experiment rather than a
realization.

Hutchinson, the general manager, was not alone. Opposite him, very
neatly dressed in his best clothes, his hat in his hand and a set
expression on his face, was one of the boss rollers of the steel mill,
Herman Klein. At Clayton's entrance he made a motion to depart, but
Hutchinson stopped him.

"Tell Mr. Spencer what you've been telling me, Klein," he said curtly.

Klein fingered his hat, but his face remained set.

"I've just been saying, Mr. Spencer," he said, in good English, but with
the guttural accent which thirty years in America had not eliminated,
"that I'll be leaving you now."

"Leaving! Why?"

"Because of that!" He pointed, without intentional drama, at the
shell-case. "I can't make those shells for you, Mr. Spencer, and me a
German."

"You're an American, aren't you?"

"I am, sir. It is not that. It iss that I--" His face worked. He had
dropped back to the old idiom, after years of painful struggle to
abandon it. "It iss that I am a German, also. I have people there, in
the war. To make shells to kill them--no."

"He is determined, Mr. Spencer," said Hutchinson. "I have been arguing
with him, but--you can't argue with a German."

Clayton was uneasily aware of something like sympathy for the man.

"I understand how you feel, Klein," he observed. "But of course you
know, whether you go or stay, the shells will be made, anyhow."

"I know that."

"You are throwing up a good position."

"I'll try to get another."

The prospective loss of Klein was a rather serious one. Clayton, seated
behind his great desk, eyed him keenly, and then stooped to bribery. He
mentioned a change in the wage scale, with bonuses to all foremen and
rollers. He knew Klein's pride in the mill, and he outlined briefly
the growth that was about to be developed. But the boss roller remained
obdurate. He understood that such things wer